Colorado all but set to join the Big 12, which will not be finished expanding west

According to multiple sources, it was the University of Colorado that asked the Big 12 for an invite, and its inclusion in the league now looks all but done.

The board members of the University of Colorado are scheduled to vote on leaving the Pac-12 Conference to re-join the Big 12 on Thursday at 3 p.m. A “yes” vote looks to be all but guaranteed.

On Wednesday evening, the Big 12 Conference held a conference call with the presidents and leaders of the respective Big 12 members, with the exception of the University of Texas and University of Oklahoma, both of which are leaving the league next summer.

The prevailing feeling from the call is that CU to the Big 12 is a yes; Colorado could potentially join the league as early as 2024. The timeline on these types of departures and arrivals is a moving target.

According to sources, the Big 12 and commissioner Brett Yormark is now targeting the University of Arizona, which would likely mean an invitation to Arizona State University.

Colorado leaving the Pac-12 will be the first major move this summer in the endless game that is major college conference realignment, the terrifying “sport” that has transformed the landscape of NCAA sports.

Since Yormark was hired by the Big 12 as its new commissioner, he has made it no secret to be aggressive in keeping the league competitive, behind the higher-revenue conferences, the Big 10 and SEC. That translates to expansion.

Although Colorado has been awful in football for the last 20 years, it is a coveted large, state school with a large fan and alumni base. Those are the essentials in major college athletics expansion, far more important than the school hiring Deion Sanders as football coach.

The Big 12 has talked to Gonzaga University about joining the league; sources said Gonzaga has expressed interest in joining only in men’s basketball, which league officials have no interest in.

The University of Connecticut is another school that has been attached to Big 12 expansion talks, but with the Pac-12 losing members the Big 12’s focus is targeting those universities first.

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The Pac-12 losing Colorado would be a damaging blow to commissioner George Kliavkoff’s hopes to keep the league not only intact, but to secure a new media rights deal it has yet to negotiate and secure.

If Colorado goes as expected, expect more to follow. It’s not rats off a sinking ship; more like a scared game of expensive musical chairs.

Colorado was an original member of the Big 12, and was in the league from 1996 to 2010. It left to join the Pac-12 in 2010, but that league changed dramatically last summer when USC and UCLA announced they were leaving to join the Big 10.

Since USC and UCLA made the announcement, a source said that both the University of Washington and University of Oregon are “of interest” to the Big 10. But the Big 10’s first goal is to potentially add Notre Dame, which remains independent.

Not long after Texas and Oklahoma announced it would leave, the Big 12 added Houston, BYU, Central Florida and Cincinnati.

Colorado to the Big 12 will not create the same “quake” as Notre Dame to the Big 10, or UT/OU to the SEC, but this is a major move by a conference that finally looks stable.